Submit to Forests Review for Forests Propose a Special Issue

Journal Menu

Journal Browser

The Environmental Impact Assessment of the Forestry and Forest Products

Print Special Issue Flyer
Special Issue Editors
Special Issue Information
Keywords
Published Papers

A special issue of Forests (ISSN 1999-4907). This special issue belongs to the section "Forest Ecology and Management".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 May 2022) | Viewed by 21603

Share This Special Issue

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Jānis Brizga

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor

Department of Environmental Governance, University of Latvia, LV-1586 Riga, Latvia
Interests: forest sustainability; environmental impact assessment; carbon footprint
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Prof. Dr. Joana Amaral Paulo

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor

Centro de Estudos Florestais (CEF), Instituto Superior de Agronomia (ISA), Universidade de Lisboa (ISA), Tapada da Ajuda, 1349-017 Lisbon, Portugal
Interests: forest modeling; forest management; forest inventory; agroforestry; nonwood forest products; cork; cork oak; montado; statistical analysis; decision support tools
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

This Special Issue aims to present exciting and innovative research on the environmental impact assessment of forestry and forest products. Forests provide important ecosystem services such as conservation of biological diversity, water and soil resources, carbon storage, and the production of non-wood products such as medical plants, mushrooms, cork, acorns and berries. Forests are also sources of economically important raw materials fuelling many industrial sectors, for example, pulp and paper, construction, furniture, and energy. Thus, it is important to maintain good environmental quality of the forests and minimize environmental impacts of the forestry and forest products. Impacts might be positive or negative, direct or indirect. We welcome original research papers, reviews, technical papers, and perspective papers addressing questions related to (a) lifecycle assessment of forest products; (b) supply chain-related environmental impacts of forestry and related industries; (c) biodiversity and carbon stock changes depending on forest management practices; (d) carbon storage in wood products; (e) integrated assessment tools such as environmental impact assessment and the sustainability impact assessment to quantify the impact of alternative forest management practices.

Dr. Jānis Brizga
Prof. Dr. Joana Amaral Paulo
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Forests is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

life cycle assessment
environmental impacts
forest carbon cycle
forest products
supply chains
biodiversity

Published Papers (4 papers)

Download All Papers

Research

Jump to: Review

15 pages, 2122 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Quantifying the Life Cycle Greenhouse Gas Emissions of a Mechanized Shelterwood Harvest Producing Both Sawtimber and Woodchips

by Joshua P. Weyrens, Obste Therasme and René H. Germain

Forests 2022, 13(1), 70; https://doi.org/10.3390/f13010070 - 04 Jan 2022

Cited by 6 | Viewed by 2341

Abstract

Forests are used to mitigate anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions through carbon offset programs, and forest management is generally accepted as “carbon neutral”. However, forest harvesting operations depend heavily on fossil fuels, so it would be remiss to broadly paint all forms of management as carbon neutral without empirical verification of this claim. Biomass feedstock, as a means to supplant fossil fuel consumption, has received the bulk of investigative efforts, as the carbon benefit of biomass is one of the most contentious among wood products, because it does not create long-term carbon storage. A life cycle assessment (LCA) was conducted on a winter shelterwood harvest occurring in the Adirondacks of upstate New York. Primary data were collected daily throughout the operation and used to model the impact attributed to producing clean chips and logs for delivery to a pulp mill and sawmill, respectively. This harvest produced 4894 Mg of clean chips and 527 Mg of sawtimber. We calculated that 39.77 and 25.16 kg of carbon dioxide equivalent were emitted per Mg of clean chips and sawtimber, respectively, with a total observed flow of GHG into the atmosphere between 206 and 210 thousand kilograms. The results contribute to our understanding of the global warming potential of implementing a forest harvest to produce raw materials for medium- and long-term carbon storage products such as paper and dimensional hardwood lumber. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Environmental Impact Assessment of the Forestry and Forest Products)

► Show Figures

Figure 1

15 pages, 1799 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Climate Benefit of Different Tree Species on Former Agricultural Land in Northern Europe

by Reimo Lutter, Gustav Stål, Lina Arnesson Ceder, Hyungwoo Lim, Allar Padari, Hardi Tullus, Annika Nordin and Tomas Lundmark

Forests 2021, 12(12), 1810; https://doi.org/10.3390/f12121810 - 20 Dec 2021

Cited by 9 | Viewed by 3072

Abstract

The new European Union Forest Strategy for 2030 aims to plant an additional 3 billion trees on non-forest land to mitigate climate change. However, the choice of tree species for afforestation to achieve the maximum climate benefit is unclear. We compared the climate benefit of six different species in terms of carbon (C) sequestration in biomass and the harvested wood substitution in products to avoid carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions from fossil-based materials over the 100-year period by afforesting about ¼ of the available area in northern Europe. The highest climate benefit was observed for larch, both at a stand scale (1626 Mg CO₂ eqv. ha⁻¹) and at the landscape level for the studied scenario (579 million Mg CO₂ eqv.). Larch was followed by Norway spruce, poplar, hybrid aspen and birch, showing a climate benefit about 40–50% lower than that for larch. The climate benefit of willow was about 70% lower than larch. Willow showed 6–14-fold lower C stocks at the landscape level after 100 years than other tree species. The major climate benefit over the 100-year period comes from wood substitution and avoided emissions, but C stock buildup at the landscape level also removes significant amounts of CO₂ already present in the atmosphere. The choice of tree species is important to maximize climate change mitigation. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Environmental Impact Assessment of the Forestry and Forest Products)

► Show Figures

Figure 1

16 pages, 5492 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Environmental Impact of a Mass Timber Building—A Case Study

by Rozalia Vanova, Patrik Stompf, Jozef Stefko and Jaroslava Stefkova

Forests 2021, 12(11), 1571; https://doi.org/10.3390/f12111571 - 15 Nov 2021

Cited by 6 | Viewed by 4166

Abstract

The study focuses on a life cycle assessment of a wood-based residential building and evaluates the magnitude of individual construction components—foundations, flooring, peripheral wall, inner walls, ceiling, roof, windows, and doors—in terms of climate change; acidification; eutrophication; photochemical oxidation; depletion of abiotic elements and fossil fuels; and water scarcity categories within the system boundaries of the Product stage of the life cycle. The assessment was done using the SimaPro software and the ecoinvent database. The results pointed at the advantages of mass timber as a construction material and highlighted the significance in the type of insulation used. Foundations were found to bear the highest share of impact on photochemical oxidation reaching nearly 30% and depletion of fossil fuels accounting for about 25% of that impact. Peripheral wall was ranked the worst in terms of impact on acidification and eutrophication (more than 25% of both), depletion of elements (responsible for 50% of that impact), and had about 60% impact on water scarcity. After adding up carbon emissions and removals, the embodied impact of the whole construction on climate change was detected to be 8185.19 kg CO₂ eq emissions which corresponded with 57.08 kg CO₂ eq/m² of gross internal area. A negative carbon composition of the construction was also set. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Environmental Impact Assessment of the Forestry and Forest Products)

► Show Figures

Figure 1

Review

Jump to: Research

13 pages, 1631 KiB

Open AccessReview

Understanding Socio-Economic and Environmental Impacts of Agroforestry on Rural Communities

by Imam Mukhlis, Muhammad Syamsu Rizaludin and Isnawati Hidayah

Forests 2022, 13(4), 556; https://doi.org/10.3390/f13040556 - 31 Mar 2022

Cited by 17 | Viewed by 10767

Abstract

Several studies have highlighted the benefit of implementing agroforestry for rural communities. From the perspective of socio-economic, agroforestry can potentially improve smallholders’ income, increase food security, promote gender equality and stimulate cultural activities in rural areas. Furthermore, agroforestry can enhance ecosystem service through improved soil structure, increased carbon sequestration and higher water retention. Despite having many advantages, the adoption of agroforestry among rural communities, particularly among smallholder farmers in developing countries remains limited. The absence of agroforestry in public policy causes little recognition of this system to tackle the climate crisis as well as to improve rural livelihood. This may be due to, among others, a less comprehensive evidence on impacts that simultaneously touch upon social, economic as well as environmental aspects of agroforestry on the community. This review gives a special emphasis on the current evidence depicting the characteristics of agroforestry adoption, its benefits and potential drawbacks, as well as challenges for the adoption in some developing countries. The outcomes might help related stakeholders to make appropriate decisions to improve rural livelihood. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Environmental Impact Assessment of the Forestry and Forest Products)

► Show Figures